She thinks this should shock her but it is doesn't. Olivia is too preoccupied with breathing. In. Out. Her lip trembles with the knowledge that she is alive and Jake has not killed her. Jake, leading a very alive Jennifer Fields out of the shack's long shadows, is as familiar as he is strange. His face earnest and raw with something like sincerity. The complete antithesis of everything in his car. The phone toss and prickly silence. Olivia has been lead down dark roads in the dark before but not like this. Not like this with him and she is as confused by his hand on this young woman's back as she is furious at her own vulnerability. In and out. Her nostrils flare and she clenches her lip with her teeth. Olivia gives Jake a look, folds her arms and cocks her head to the problem at hand.
She wants to slap him. She doesn't do scared. Not anymore and it's one more error on the long rap sheet of their relationship that neither one will forgive. Good, bad or indifferent, he's her family and he scared her half to the death. They're going to talk. Later.
"Explain" she snaps succinctly and Jake is leading Jennifer to a threadbare couch, her eyes large and hopeful in a way that makes everything in Olivia want to scream. What the fuck have you done now Jake? And on whose orders exactly? He went back to Rowan. Willingly. It's half the reason she feels so wrong footed right now. Olivia walked into her father's house and took Jake's hand and told him he was free and she was lying, but she didn't know it, and she never ever hurt him. Not like Rowan, but he still went back and is talking about feeling right and alive and Olivia is so very tired. She just wants this one beautiful, powerful thing and everyone is changing the rules. She sincerely doubts her father faced this much difficulty. People stayed dead with him.
But Rowan is the one who instructed Jake do this? Olivia blinks back into focus on Jennifer's stammering speech and Jake's sharp green gaze and yes, there is another conspiracy. It is larger than Rowan which is downright terrifying and B-13 screwed up with their Command upheaval and Rowan's imprisonment and apparently Mellie is the white queen on their political chessboard. And she gave them Mellie. She has delivered her former rival into the hands of people more insidious than her truly despicable father and now she is expendable into the bargain.
"Olivia." It's his hand on her shoulder that jerks her out of her musing, the warmth of it, more than his voice. She hasn't said a word while they confessed everything. She isn't reacting normally to such a problem. She knows this and shakes her head a little. She wonders, not if he cares about her, but what exactly his angle is in dragging her not even twenty miles west of the Potomac to tell her someone else wants her dead like that's even news.
"Did Rowan ask you to tell me this?" her voice is quiet. She doesn't want the girl staring at them from the couch to hear this. Jake steps in closer. Hides Jennifer from her shrewd gaze.
"No. Olivia, Rowan's lost control. Can't you-"
"There's no leverage here Jake. I have no leverage. I have no clue what game you're playing but-"
"Liv!" She blinks up at him. "Rowan told me to kill Jennifer Fields and she is very much alive. Stop! Think!" The earnest look is back. He's lead her through a pile of breadcrumbs to this quiet moment. She supposes she could do him the courtesy of believing him. She's still mad about the scare in the car and Jennifer is still staring. The girl on the couch lied because apparently Cyrus did not kill Frankie Vargas and she was a loose thread that needed snipping. And Jake did not snip.
"Did you sleep with him?" she asks suddenly. Jake's hand clenches over her shoulder, but her face is turned to the girl blinking owlishly on the couch. Olivia looks her over. There is a slight pause. Jennifer looks at Jake for guidance and Olivia wants so much, for this night to be over.
"Frankie? No... it was part of the mission. To discredit him. I think... but he never took the bait" Olivia smiles sadly. A good and honest man is dead because he didn't play the game. He could not be manipulated and here she stands at the other end of her white hat days being asked to help, to know somehow that what has happened must be fixed.
"I thought I was a villain." Olivia snarks at Jake as she strips Jennifer to shreds with her eyes. She is a problem. Not least of which is her complicity in the affair makes her unreliable. All she is good for is operational context on the target, another covert organization in an exhausting history of shadow operations.
"I thought you wanted our sacrifices to mean something" Jake counters, his hand still on her arm.
Well, shit. Where's the wine when I need it?